Me²: Capsule
Recorded: 1/11/1987
Broadcast: 121/3/1988
Written by: Rob Grant and Doug Naylor
Directed by: Ed Bye
What is it?
Rimmer creates his perfect companion - an identical duplicate of himself. He moves out of his quarters he shares with Lister and starts rooming with his doppelganger. At first things are blissful, but the course of true love never runs smoothly, and soon the two Rimmers find themselves locked in a conflict so fierce, only one of them can survive.
Production Notes
Due to the huge amount of split-screens in the episode, a load of it was pre-recorded. As well as all the scenes where there are two Rimmers, the shots of the skutter hitting the wall and Tony Hawks's commercial were shot on the day before the audience arrived.
Me² was the last show to be written, as a previous script, in which Rimmer trys to create a new body using parts of Lister's, was dropped. Therefore, this episode benefits from being written with the actors in mind, rather than being mostly written before casting took place, as per the rest of the series. It is also the first episode to feature Holly's face in the main bunkroom set.
In the cinema scene, we catch our only glimpse of Mugs Murphy - Lister's favourite cartoon character, who Rob and Doug initially intended to use more in the series. This piece of animation was shot on 16mm film by the BBC Graphics Department, and the music used was Getting The Runaround by The Hedgehoppers. Elsewhere in the scene, the music used is Sari by Keith Prowse (Indian restaurant commercial) and Dancing On Ice (music playing before Mugs Murphy starts).
Book Version
The majority of the events in this episode also took place in Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers, starting in Part Two, Chapter Twenty-Two. In the book, Rimmer duplicates his disc and projects the copy from the Nova 5. The Rimmers take on the responsibility of renovating the crashed ship, which they succeed in doing, but not before blowing out half of the skutters and accidentally breaking the ship into three pieces.
In Part Two, Chapter Thirty-Three, Rimmer's Gazpacho Soup story is told in much greater detail. He tells of how he hired an escort to act as his girlfriend for the dinner, but she ran away with all of his money. He explains her absence to the officers by saying that she was killed in a car crash, but he's over it now. Some additional embarrasing events in the dinner include Rimmer accidentally taking an item of cutler from the diner next to him, and forgetting the punchline to a killer joke (remeniscent of the TV-version of Better Than Life).
Later, in Part Three Chapter Four, one of Rimmer's fantasy dinner guests, The Prince Of Wales, suffers a similar Gazpacho-based embarrassment, but thankfully Rimmer is on hand to tactfully correct him.
Deleted Scenes
The recent DVD release featured:
- Lister inviting the Cat to move in with him.
- Lister reading the signs on the Rimmers' door.
- An extended version of the cinema scene, which fixes a famous continuity error.
Re-Mastered
- A huge gust of Cadmium II radiation was added to Rimmer's death scene.
- Weird drinking sound effects during the Drive Room scene.
- Rimmer's reaction to Lister saying 'Souper' is inexplicably removed.
Recycled Ideas
The entire NORWEB sequence is recycled more or less word for word from a Dave Hollins: Space Cadet sketch, featurred in the second episode of the second series of Son of Cliché, as well as in the Red Dwarf Omnibus. Also, in this episode we see a poster of a monkey on a toilet, which is discussed in another Son of Cliché sketch, Freshers.
Gazpacho Soup Day is based on an incident that was narrowly avoided by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor. At a meeting at Thames Television, the pair were bewildered when they recieved cold soup, but fortunately they refrained from complaining.
Videos/DVDs:
The episode is (or at least was) availiable on the following releases:
- Red Dwarf I Byte II: Confidence and Paranoia. Released in 1993 by BBC Enterprises. Catalogue No. : BBCV 4915
- Red Dwarf Series One Re-Mastered: Episodes IV - VI. Released in 1998 by BBC Worldwide. Catalogue No. : BBCV 6437
- Red Dwarf I - The Original Series. Released in 2002 by BBC Worldwide. Catalogue No. : BBCDVD 1117
Credits
Rimmer | Chris Barrie |
Lister | Craig Charles |
Cat | Danny John-Jules |
Holly | Norman Lovett |
Captain Hollister | Mac McDonald |
Written by | Rob Grant and Doug Naylor |
Music | Howard Goodall |
Developed for Television by | Paul Jackson Productions |
Graphic Designer | Mark Allen |
Visual Effects Designer | Peter Wragg |
Properties Buyer | Mike Fallon |
Assistant Floor Manager | Dona Distefano |
Production Assistant | Alison Thornber |
Unit Manager | Mario Dubois |
Production Manager | George R. Clarke |
Costume Designer | Jacki Pinks |
Costume Assistant | Lesley Staves |
Make-up Designer | Suzanne Jansen |
Vision Mixer | Jill Dornan |
Camera Supervisor | Mike Jackson |
Technical Co-ordinator | John Spicer |
Videotape Editor | Ed Wooden |
Lighting Director | John Pomphrey |
Sound Supervisor | Tony Worthington |
Designer | Paul Montague |
Executive Producer | Paul Jackson |
Produced & Directed by | Ed Bye |
Uncredited Extras: Tony Hawks (commericial voice-over), Stephen Holt (Rimmer double), Peter Ingham, Les Allen, Nigel Peevers, Kev James (crew).